With economic pressures on families increasing, more women are working outside the home leaving their children in day care centres. In a community-based, descriptive cross-sectional study, the feeding pattern in two groups of children under two years old, cared for in two different rearing environments: home environment and day care centres, was…

Early identification and treatment of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in children younger than age 3 years is becoming an increasingly common area of concern and study. Research suggests that systematic, early intervention can significantly improve outcomes and reduce the cost of caring for children with ASD through the lifespan. Therefore, it is…

We report a major revision of the CHecklist for Autism in Toddlers (CHAT). This "quantitative" CHAT (Q-CHAT) contains 25 items, scored on a 5 point scale (0-4). The Q-CHAT was completed by parents of n = 779 unselected toddlers (mean age 21 months) and n = 160 toddlers and preschoolers (mean age 44 months) with an Autism Spectrum…

Toddlers have been found to fail on a three-location search task involving the invisible displacements of an object, namely the C-not-B task. In this task, a child is shown the experimenter's hand that contains a toy. The toy then successively disappears under the three cloths (A, B, then C). The examiner silently releases the toy under the second…

In the summer of 2009, ZERO TO THREE commissioned Hart Research Associates to conduct a survey among parents of children from birth to 36 months old. This survey of 1,615 parents provides insight on the experiences of parents today and the factors that influence their approach to parenting. The survey also explores those on whom they rely for…

Despite the abundance of research on attachment and on the effects of separation, very little research examines the actual processes of separation occurring daily when mothers leave their children (age 6-18 months) in out-of-home group care. In the current study, this everyday process of separation was observed for three months…

When children apologize, they accept responsibility for wrongdoings and act to reconcile social relationships. Apologies to siblings were coded in 40 families that were observed for 9 h when children were 2 1/2 and 4 1/2 years old, and again 2 years later. We found that sibling apologies were rare, generally simple in form, and more frequent after…

This study examines the role that context plays in links between relative balance, or mutuality in parent-child interaction and children's social competence. Sixty-three toddlers and their parents were observed in a laboratory play session and caregiving activity (i.e. eating snack). Mutuality was operationalised as the relative balance in (a)…

We explored the everyday experiences of 18- to 36-month-old toddlers at two study sites and the influence of adaptation to the host culture on the everyday experiences of children from migrant families. First- and second-generation Puerto Rican families in Connecticut, USA, first- and second-generation Turkish families in Bochum, Germany, as well…

The goals of this study were to examine the relations between and trajectories of mothers' and children's social positive expressivity (PE). Mothers' and children's PE were observed annually for four years beginning when children were approximately 18 months old (N = 247; 110 girls). Based on correlations, there was evidence of rank-order…

This descriptive qualitative report is taken from a larger U.S. study on the influences of teacher practices on the early development of emotion regulation in toddlers. This report focuses on the classroom practices of two teachers in separate toddler classrooms. During a week of observations in each setting, the authors collected data on how the…

Social skills and symbol skills are positively associated in middle childhood, but the relation between these domains is less clear in newly verbal toddlers. Vygotsky proposed that symbols are both tools for interaction and mental tools for thought. Do symbols help even very young children build skills for interacting with and conceptualizing the…

This study investigated the type and stability of temperament profiles in toddlers, and relations of profile probability to negative and positive parenting trajectories. Mothers (N = 96) rated their child's (41 girls and 54 boys) Sociability, Anger Proneness, and Activity Level four times during 1 year. The assessment of parenting included both…

In two studies we investigated 2-year-old children's answers to predicate-focus questions depending on the preceding context. Children were presented with a successive series of short video clips showing transitive actions (e.g., frog washing duck) in which either the action (action-new) or the patient (patient-new) was the changing, and therefore…

The federal Early Head Start (EHS) program was created in 1994 to address the comprehensive needs of children under age 3 in low-income families and vulnerable low-income pregnant women. In addition to early learning opportunities, EHS's comprehensive early childhood development programs provide children and families with access to a range of…